


The 4 a.m. Job

by nightwalker



Category: Leverage
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Established Relationship, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 22:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3586197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/pseuds/nightwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've only been back from San Lorenzo for a few  hours when the phone rings. But Parker had promised only to call in an emergency.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 4 a.m. Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ylixia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ylixia/gifts).



> **Warnings:** There is a brief reference to self-harm. No actual self-harm occurs in the story.

The phone rings at four in the morning right after they get back from San Lorenzo. 

Alec is asleep and gratefully so. It’s been a shitty couple of weeks and he just wants some space and some downtime. But the fucking phone rings at four in the fucking morning and it’s Parker’s ring. She promised she would only bother him for emergencies. He can’t ignore that. Not even if she does have a highly skewed sense of what constitutes an emergency.

So he grabs the phone (it takes like three or four tries and he knocks it onto the floor at one point which results in a lot of swearing and him falling out of bed) and he’s only a little out of breath when he answers. “Parker? What’s wrong?”

"You need to come." Parker’s voice is hushed but frantic. "I don’t know how to make him stop and he _listens_ to you.”

"What?" He scrubs a hand over his eyes. "What’s going on? Where are you?"

"I’m at Eliot’s!" she hisses into the phone. 

It’s utterly unreasonable for him to feel put out by that but he does anyway. Just because he’s having a hard time with what Eliot did - what Eliot was - doesn’t mean that anyone else has to.

Mostly it bothers him that no one else does. Like this wasn’t much of a shock to them. Like maybe they knew Eliot better than he does.

"What’s wrong with Eliot?" he finally asks, because if someone needed to be stopped Eliot would have _made them stop_ , which means it must be the jerk himself she’s worried about.

"He’s going on about Moreau and he’s really upset." Parker’s voice dropped even lower. "He has a knife and he’s saying crazy things and you need to make him stop because I don’t know how to talk people _out_ of being crazy!”

Shit. _Shit_. Alec’s scrambling one-handed into jeans before he can even think about it. Everything about Moreau had pushed Eliot’s buttons. He’d been messed up about this job long before they took it. “Just keep him talking. Do _not_ try to take the knife from him.”

"He won’t hurt _me_ ,” she says, and then he hears Eliot’s voice through the phone, like he’s calling her from another room, and Parker abruptly hangs up.

Alec breaks about a dozen traffic laws getting to Eliot’s place and when he slams his key into the lock and bursts through the door he’s barefoot and shirtless, his phone still clenched in one hand.

Parker and Eliot are sitting cross-legged on the living room floor. Parker’s wearing an over-sized t-shirt, like she’s getting ready for bed. Eliot’s wearing sweats and nothing else. No one appears to be on the brink of some kind of violent breakdown. No one has a knife.

"Hardison?" Eliot says, kind of doubtful, like he’s not sure why Alec is there. 

It sucks a little, because that’s not how Eliot would have greeted him if Alec had barged half-naked into his apartment before this job, and Alec kind of likes the way Eliot’s mouth curved into an easy grin when Alec walked through his door.

"Oh good, you’re here!" And Parker is scrambling to her feet and practically leaping across the room to his side. "You have to stop him!"

"Stop me?" Eliot tips his head to the side like that’s an amusing idea. "Stop me from what exactly?"

“ _Crazy talk_ ,” Parker yells back at him.

"Is this about my hair? Parker. Did you call Hardison about my _hair_?”

Hair? Alec gives Parker a look. “You said he had a knife!”

Eliot’s lip curled up in a snarl. “Is that why you’re here? You though I was gonna hurt Parker?”

"No, you jackass, I thought you were gonna hurt yourself!" Alec tries to turn on Eliot in indignant outrage, but Parker is clinging to his arm and that makes it hard to pull of the dramatic moves. "She said you had a knife and that you were upset about Moreau! I thought-" He snaps his mouth shut. "You know what, fuck you man, it doesn’t matter. Parker, what the hell?"

"He wants to cut it all off!"

And that’s when Alec sees the shears sitting on the coffee table. “Eliot’s cutting his hair?”

Parker grabs his face in both hands. “ _Stop him_.” She pouts at Eliot over her shoulder. “It’s so pretty.”

"You’re both idiots," Eliot says. "I’m going to bed. And tomorrow I am cutting my hair."

"Nooooo." Parker bounces in place.

"You’ve had that haircut longer than I’ve known you," Alec says, for lack of anything better. "Why the need for a change?"

Eliot pauses at the edge of the living room. His back is tanned and lined with muscle, the skin marked by a dozen different scars. Hardison knows them all by heart, but it’s been weeks since he’s felt them beneath his fingers. “Moreau thought it suited me,” he says finally.

"So you’re gonna cut it all off just to spite a guy who’s spending the rest of his life in solitary and will never see you again?"

Eliot’s shoulders tense. “No,” he says in a short, angry burst. “I’m cutting it, because I don’t want to think about him when I look in the fucking mirror.”

Parker goes still against him and Alec curses himself. “Okay,” he says. “That’s - you know that makes sense. You want us to go with you tomorrow?”

There’s a long minute where Eliot doesn’t look at them, and Alec barely breathes. It’s more than the haircut and he’s honestly not sure if Eliot’s willing to take this half-formed apology.

"Yeah. All right." Eliot starts walking down the hall toward his room. He doesn’t look at them. "But you two keep your opinions to yourself."

"We swear," Alec calls after him.

"I’ll bring magazines," Parker whispers against his ear and Alec gives her an approving smile.

Eliot disappears into his bedroom. “You two idiots coming or what?”

Parker beats him to the bedroom. But only barely.


End file.
